'American Crucifixion' is an insightful account of the life and death of enigmatic Mormon founder Joseph Smith

If Joseph Smith Jr., the founder of Mormonism, “indulged in megalomania, he came by it honestly.” So writes Alex Beam in “American Crucifixion: The Murder of Joseph Smith and the Fate of the Mormon Church” (PublicAffairs, 352 pp., $26.99), his colorful account of the amazing rise and untimely demise of this fascinating figure.

After all, starting as a teenager in upstate New York, Smith experienced a series of revelations commanding him to establish Christ’s pure church on Earth. An angel helped him discover and translate a buried ancient scripture, which the 24-year-old Smith published as “The Book of Mormon” in 1830. Within 15 years, he headed a religion that counted at least 25,000 adherents.

Smith became a celebrity, “perhaps more notorious than famous, but a figure of renown nonetheless.” His followers proclaimed him “King, Priest and Ruler of Israel on the Earth.”

He corresponded with national and foreign leaders, and even contemplated running for the highest office in the land. Indeed, he seemed almost resigned to greatness, proclaiming, “When I . . . see how popular I am, I am afraid I shall be President.”

Instead, in June 1844, an enraged mob in Carthage, Ill., broke into a jail where he was being held and murdered him.

Beam, a Boston Globe columnist, novelist and author of previous nonfiction works, depicts Smith as a combination of huckster, madman and prophet. He was one-of-a-kind, to be sure, but Beam insightfully analyzes him in the broader context of Jacksonian America’s raucously democratic and frequently violent frontier.

To say that Smith evoked strong feelings would be an understatement. Beam points out that people gravitated to the charismatic Smith not only because God talked to him, “but also because Joseph talked to them.”

His preaching played on 19th-century Americans’ feelings of exceptionalism by merging the Old and New Testaments with the New World “into one seamless, divine narrative” that assured his followers “that they, too, lived in a Holy Land.”

Still, many reviled Smith. One relatively mild contemporary denunciation labeled him “a compound of ignorance, vanity, arrogance, coarseness and stupidity and vulgarity.” He spent a considerable part of his brief life on the run from angry crowds and the law.

At various times, he was “tarred and feathered, tried, jailed, and exiled.” The good citizens of Hiram, Ohio, once implored a local physician to castrate Smith. This the doctor wouldn’t do, although he did unsuccessfully attempt to poison him.

Smith established Mormon communities in Ohio and Missouri. The first (in Kirtland, where a Mormon temple still stands) foundered financially; the latter was aborted due to bitter anti-Mormon vigilantism.

In 1840, Smith established the Illinois settlement of Nauvoo on the Mississippi River’s east bank. Almost overnight, it became a thriving town whose 10,000 Saints made it more populous than Chicago.

Smith’s theology “was very much a work in progress.” Beam asserts that “if one sentence could describe” this process, “it would be: ‘Wait, there is more.’ ” Smith continually received new revelations. By far the most controversial was the doctrine of polygamy, which divided his flock – and nonplussed his original wife – while provoking their non-Mormon neighbors.

It was riot charges springing from Smith’s disputes with dissenting Mormons that led to his fateful jailing in Carthage. The civil authorities, starting with Illinois’ governor, then turned a blind eye when anti-Mormon militiamen lynched Smith.

Beam certainly doesn’t go easy on Smith. Modern Mormons – there are roughly 14 million worldwide, a testament to Smith’s influence – won’t like this book, but the author is equally condemnatory toward the vicious intolerance he faced and the cowardly mob that killed him.

A compulsively readable tale of Smith’s life and times, “American Crucifixion” also serves as an intriguing study of why people are moved to abandon themselves, both to devout religious belief and unreasoning fear and hatred of “the other.”

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